Was I unreasonable to let my friend walk to the train station alone on a night out?

[Anonymous2003]

I'm aware that the title sounds very bad and I'm thinking I may get a lot of angry comments. Last month, my friends and I went out for drinks in the city centre for my birthday. None of us bar one live in the city, and public transport is not great here with trains being few and far between. Since we went out around 4pm, I wasn't planning on us staying out too late but we didn't make any 'set in stone' plans on what time to go home.
3 of us (myself, Friend 1 and Friend 2) live in the same general direction, with the last 2 trains going home in that direction being at 9pm and then 10.50pm.
After we had our meal we went to a bar round 7.30pm and it didn't feel like we were there very long before Friend A said she should be going soon to get the 9pm train as she didn't want her mum to pick her up from the train station late at night.
The atmosphere was only starting to be good and neither me nor the others wanted to leave so early. Friend 1 hadn't had many drinks and was nowhere near drunk. Friend 2 offered to get the train home with her at 9, Friend 1 declined. We offered to walk her to the station (20 minute walk each way for us which is quite lengthy) and she declined. Friend 1 said she would walk to the station alone while talking on the phone to a relative to feel safe.
We said goodbye and texted her soon after to make sure she got on the train okay, she told us she did but had gotten lost on the way there.
We are going out again this week and she said she will try to get a lift home to save her walking alone.
Were we bad friends to not go with her? It's not like we didn't offer but I still feel a tad guilty despite it being relatively early in the evening. I don't plan on doing this again.

No, she left to catch the 9pm train

@Silvers11 yes, I think this is exactly the case and you are unfortunately right.

This reminds me of the time I was at primary school and my best friend Karen didn't have any money to get anyting from the tuck shop. I offered to get her something she said no and I also offered her some of my chocolate, she said no. Karen if you're out there. I'm sorry. If I had the chance again I would have just bought you your own chocolate. Soz!!

It’s fine. I’ve honestly never felt anything less than perfectly safe to walk in my city centre (Glasgow) at night, especially at that time but at any time really. I mean, i wouldn’t go into dark alleys or parks and always stick to well lit busy street, but your friend was fine to walk to the station at 9pm and 20 mins isn’t that far.

She made a couple of comments about how last time she got lost, how her mum was very cross

Why does her mum know anything about it? I never told my mum that level of detail about what I was doing. And my mum would expect me to be perfectly capable of getting myself home after an evening out (when it wasn't even late) without needing my hand held.

@MissRoseDurward because she has an overly close 'best friend' relationship with her mum. I'm the same as you, I only tell my parents what they need to know and cringe at some of the stuff she tells her mum!

I'm not sure you can have an overly close relationship with a mum tbh.

You don't seem to like your friend very much, reading the tone of your comments. Has she got other friends she could socialise with?

You absolutely can have an overly close relationship with a mum..

No. You can have a controlling parent, an emotionally abusive parent, a co dependent relationship etc, the negative list goes on. But 'closeness'? That is a good thing.

Well, I think a lot of people mean codependent when they say "overly close" and that's a perfectly standard colloquial usage

And I think if your mum is privy to every single detail of your life - e.g. you would tell her things like getting slightly lost in your nearest city, that isn't especially a good thing.

'And I think if your mum is privy to every single detail of your life - e.g. you would tell her things like getting slightly lost in your nearest city, that isn't especially a good thing.'

It's just normal chat. One of mine texted me to tell me what an amazing sandwich she'd got from a Christmas market today complete with a pic. We aren't co dependent or weird, our dc just tell us things, within reason obviously. I think getting lost on a night out would certainly have got a mention and I'd have said get an uber or use phone maps next time (or travel with friends..).

I can't imagine living like that.

I am bored enough by my own minutiae without hearing all about someone else's.

Sure something like - look at this nice sandwich once in a while is just chit chat but "mum, I went down St John street and then when I saw the subway, I realised I should have done down Market Street and all of this happened at 8:30" just sounds breathtakingly dull

I wouldn't even remember it happening to myself really by the time I got home

Your friend is pretty neurotic about this. Worrying about walking down a busy street at 5pm is far too much.

My 11 yo daughter walks home from school by herself at 5pm FFS and I think this is fine never mind a grown woman.

I agree. I'd often ask my dd how her evening went & she'd probably tell me if she got lost on the way to the station. Absolutely nothing weird about it at all